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WEB EVANGELISM BULLETIN

. . . learning from each other
W-E-B Issue 165 ~ Dec 08-Jan 09
Monthly ISSN 471-0323

News this time...

MUSICAL QUIZZES
VIDEO CLIP OUTREACH - WRITING ON A NAPKIN
THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
TIPS
HOW DOES THE MEDIUM CHANGE THE MESSAGE
Incarnational Evangelism
LITERATURE OUTREACH
SOCIAL NETWORKING, YOUTUBE AND YOUNG PEOPLE
DON'T FORGET THE NEW DOMAINS
FACING THE CHALLENGE COURSES NOW FREE
OVERCOMING ONLINE SEGREGATION
CHURCH DIGITAL MINISTRY
TAILEND

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"Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare." - Japanese Proverb

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MUSICAL QUIZZES

What is the most popular musical of all time?

Les Miserables.
How many people have watched this musical worldwide?

Over 51 million.
In how many languages?

English, Norwegian, Japanese, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Latvian, Estonian, Czech, German and French.
How many of them were likely to have been Christians?

Small minority - ie. national average.
Has it been licensed for use in high schools?

Yes.
What is the musical about?

Forgiveness, grace, law, and salvation.
Is it powerful parable illustrating truths of the gospel?

Yes.
Is it a wonderful starting-point and staging post for building on the truths it proclaims?

Yes.
How many evangelistic websites are there in any language, using Les Mis as a starting point for the gospel?

Virtually none found searching on Google (see links below).

Are we ignoring a ready-made evangelistic gift from God? Yes/no

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Mis%C3%A9rables_(musical)
http://www.damaris.org/content/content.php?type=5&id=302
http://www.goodnewsline.com/sermon/view/3971/LesMiserablesHopeForRedemption/

Subject to the licensing requirements for your country, I'd also feel that songs from the show (performed live, or played as audio or video) would work well in both a mission challenge or evangelistic setting.

... and also:

What song was sung by Alexandra Burke, the winner of UK's THE X FACTOR (the show on which AMERICAN IDOL is based)?

Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.
Which song was both No 1 and No 2 in the UK Christmas 2008 charts?

Hallelujah.
Does it contain biblical references and analogies?

Yes.
Is it a good starting point to lead in to truths about life, the world, and the gospel?

Yes.
Can you find anyone online actually doing this? If not, why not?

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VIDEO CLIP OUTREACH - WRITING ON A NAPKIN

It may not be a coincidence that when James Choung, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, set out to help college students explain the gospel to their friends, he turned to the most beloved tool in an engineer's arsenal: the napkin diagram. Choung, now serves as the divisional director for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in San Diego.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/outreach/articles/4lawsto4circles.html

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THE WORLD WE LIVE IN

"As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God" Matthew Parris, an insightful and thought-provoking columnist for the London Times, has an intimate knowledge of Africa. And, as an atheist, thinks the gospel is vital for Africa! (Incidentally, this is also an illustration of viral transmission, because this link has been published in countless Christian blogs and newsletters.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece

A technology which has remained essential unchanged for a century is finally fading - the movie projector. Many small cinemas (movie theaters) may have to close because they cannot afford the cost of new digital projectors, and film distributors will soon no longer distribute films on reels:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article5009253.ece

Check any text for plagiarism:
http://www.dustball.com/cs/plagiarism.checker/

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TIPS

- non-techies look away now

SITE RECOVERY: Recover a lost website - Warrick will search the following web repositories for missing resources: Internet Archive, Google, Live Search, and Yahoo. All of the resources are gathered together and provided to you as a single collection of files:
http://warrick.cs.odu.edu/

LATEST SCRIPTS - user-friendly 404 error page, star rating system and more:
http://www.weberdev.com/

GMAIL has added the capability to work on your Gmail offline, using a plug-in for your browser. If you're an avid Gmail user, this is your ticket to "catching up" during that next long journey:
http://gears.google.com/

VIRUSES - if you are worried about a file, upload it to Virus Total http://www.virustotal.com and see what they say about it (VirusTotal will scan it with 38 AV scanners).
Always be aware of the danger of clicking any link in an unsolicited email, such as those purporting to offer a link to a news story:
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/obamaspeech.asp

FREE ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE - The acclaimed AVAST software is free to personal users (and licences for organisational users are very reasonable):
http://www.avast.com/

MALWAY - sigh - there's even malware in credit card processing, says Jeremy Wagstaff's Loose Wire blog:
http://www.loosewireblog.com/2009/01/malware-inside-the-credit-card-machine.html

JAVASCRIPT ALERT BOXES - a nice improvement to the standard alert:
http://www.willmaster.com/library/javascript/alert-box-alternative.php

GRAY-OUT SCREEN - to attract people to a layer message:
http://www.hunlock.com/blogs/Snippets:_Howto_Grey-Out_The_Screen

ANNOYANCES is a resource site to help you with niggling issues you might (surely not) have with Windows:
http://annoyances.org/

VIDEO CONFERENCING/CHAT FREE - from TokBox:
http://church20.blogspot.com/2008/12/tokbox-video-chat-room.html

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HOW DOES THE MEDIUM CHANGE THE MESSAGE

"In preparing for my course on Internet ministry next semester, I am seeing the need to cover the topic of how the medium affects the message. The question is not 'DOES the Internet change the message of our ministry', it is 'HOW does the message change when it is communicated via the Internet?' This is, of course, classic Marshall McLuhan and 'the medium is the message'," writes David Bourgeois on his blog:
http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2008/11/26/how-does-the-medium-internet-change-the-message-ministry/

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INCARNATIONAL EVANGELISM

John Stott's final public sermon before retirement highlighted the significance of relational, incarnational evangelism in the future.

Tim Chester comments in his blog: "One of the ingredients of a church planting movement is that it will be apostolic: that is, it will involve sent communities that go to people. 'Apostle' means 'sent one'. They were at street level. They grew not by advertising their services on noticeboard and opening their doors each Sunday morning. They grew through relationships. But to reach a neighborhood or community of people, we need to:

* eat their food
* play their games
* hear their stories
* walk their streets
* enter their homes
* follow their timetable
* inhabit their spaces

http://timchester.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/an-apostolic-pattern-of-church-planting/

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LITERATURE OUTREACH

The first issue of the Africa Comics Project has been published. For more news on this exciting project:
http://comix35.org/africa_project.html

If you need free outreach literature for the non-western world in easy-English, African-French, African-Portuguese, Swahili, or Fulani, order them here:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/free-papers.php

Other free or downloadable resources here:
http://www.soon.org.uk/studyephesians

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SOCIAL NETWORKING, YOUTUBE AND YOUNG PEOPLE

YOUTH: Don Hutcraft says 2009 is taking a new direction in evangelizing young people in the United States. "What we think is exciting is a concept that will bring lost young people out, who might never have heard of the biggest Christian band out there..."
http://www.mnnonline.org/article/11923

Nearly 2,000 teens have signed up for the "Online Missions Trip" to use popular social networking sites to share stories about God:
http://www.web-evangelism.com/offsitelink?b08dec-onlinemissionstrip
http://www.onlinemissionstrip.com/

PARENTS AND MOBILES - the positives, from Mobile Ministry Magazine:
http://mobileministrymagazine.com/2008/12/parents-and-mobile-kids-part-1.html

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DON'T FORGET THE NEW DOMAINS

As reported last time, the Internet Evangelism Day site now uses the InternetEvangelismDay.com domain only. If you have links to the gospelcom.net subdomain used previously, please could you change your links:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/anypage.php becomes
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/anypage.php

Most Web Evangelism Guide pages have been moved over into the IE Day site (with the exception of the online issues of this Bulletin) and you can mainly find them here:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/communication-channel.php

Both sites are now hosted at AgathonGroup.com - who have been incredibly supportive in getting a quite complex transfer to work smoothly. Thanks guys.

Due to time constraints, the Bulletin has been bi-monthly the last two issues. Hopefully, we will be back to monthly again from next month.

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FACING THE CHALLENGE COURSES NOW FREE

UK Ministry FACING THE CHALLENGE have decided to offer their excellent study courses free. Download the study guides directly from the site (though you can still buy them on CD if you prefer). Intended for group (or personal) study and discussion over a period of weeks, these training guides cover:

Facing the Challenge of our Times
Facing the Challenge of a Hostile World
Facing the Challenge of Other Faiths
Facing the Challenge of Television
What Muslims Believe
What Hindus Believe
Jesus and the Da Vinci Code

Why not try one for your home group, church fellowship, or college module?
http://www.facingthechallenge.org/

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OVERCOMING ONLINE SEGREGATION

Andrew Sears writes, "TechMission, the Christian non-profit I lead, was founded out of black and Latino churches and ministries that often found themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide."
http://www.web-evangelism.com/offsitelink?b08dec-newdigitaldivide

INTERNET CAFES can be a real relationship building and evangelistic resource:
http://www.mnnonline.org/article/12163

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CHURCH DIGITAL MINISTRY

OFFERING WIFI - Interesting idea - as a service to the community, offer wifi to people in the area of your church building:
http://www.web-evangelism.com/offsitelink?b08dec-churchwifi

VIDEO FOR YOUR SITE - increasingly, people expect an introductory video:
http://www.churchedit.co.uk/website-tips/adding-video-to-your-church-website.php
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/church-video.php

INTERVIEWS WITH CHURCH SITE DESIGNERS: Darren Hoyt (not a church-goer) has interviewed a number of church site designers, and asked a range of pertinent questions. This page is a very valuable resource, because rarely do people discuss these issues online in any detail:
http://www.darrenhoyt.com/2009/01/08/interviews-with-church-designers/

VIDEO TEACHING - sign up for advance news of video teaching you can use in your church, an initiative of Lifechurch.tv:
http://www.VideoTeaching.com

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TAILEND ô¿ô

Sir, As a young electronics graduate many years ago, I remember unpacking a new oscilloscope, the latest and best of its class. Several hours later, having only achieved mixed results, I decided to open the manual. The first page stated in large bold letters: "Now you've tried it your way, try it our way."
From 'Letters to the Editor', London Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article5025628.ece